Silicone (silicone oil and silicone surfactants) has the advantage that it is highly safe and excellent in heat resistance and water repellency. Further, silicone has a good feeling (light touch) in use and smoothly spreads on skin or hair, and it is excellent in water resistance, emulsion stability, detergency and feeling after washing. Therefore, particularly in the field of cosmetic preparations, silicone is widely used as makeup cosmetic preparations such as foundations and lipsticks; skin-care cosmetic preparations such as emulsions and creams; hair-care cosmetic preparations such as shampoos and rinses; and sunscreen agents.
On the other hand, since silicone is poorly compatible with an oil agent, when combining silicone with an oil agent, the combination amount of silicone or the oil agent is limited. Further, silicone has a low affinity for a water-base component. Therefore, when combining silicone with a formulation wherein an oil phase and a water phase normally separate and they are shaken in use such as a two-layer separative makeup remover, it is difficult to sustain the emulsified state by combination of silicone only, and the oil phase and the water phase quickly separate. Accordingly, it is required to further combine a component which has a high affinity for a water-base component or a surfactant (an emulsifying agent).
Thus, until now, the used amount of silicone has been limited, or a component which is compatible with silicone and excellent in an affinity for a water-base component has been used, such as an oil agent like diisostearyl malate. However, since diisostearyl malate has a high viscosity and the touch thereof in use becomes thicker, the good feeling (light touch) of silicone, which is the advantage when using silicone, is impaired by combining diisostearyl malate.
Meanwhile, it is already known to combine an ester compound(s) of erythritol and/or erythritol condensate with a fatty acid(s), or polycondensate(s) thereof as an oil agent in a cosmetic preparation (see Patent Literatures 1-12, for example). Though these patents disclose that the above ester compound(s) or polycondensate(s) thereof is used as an oil agent and combined with silicone, many of them intend to make an appeal for the excellent particulate (pigmentary) dispersibility of the above ester compound(s) or polycondensate(s) thereof. Thus, they neither disclose nor indicate that the problems such as the poor compatibility of silicone with an oil agent and the low affinity thereof for a water-base component can be solved by combining an oil agent(s) which is the above ester compound(s) or polycondensate(s) thereof with silicone.    Patent Literature 1: WO2003/082454    Patent Literature 2: WO2004/100902    Patent Literature 3: WO2004/100917    Patent Literature 4: JP 2004-339093 A    Patent Literature 5: JP 2004-339094 A    Patent Literature 6: JP 2004-339095 A    Patent Literature 7: JP 2004-339100 A    Patent Literature 8: JP 2004-339096 A    Patent Literature 9: JP 2004-339097 A    Patent Literature 10: JP 2004-339099 A    Patent Literature 11: JP 2004-339295 A    Patent Literature 12: JP 2004-339121 A